K. Christopher Beard is an American

paleontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

, an

expert An expert is somebody who has a broad and deep understanding and competence in terms of knowledge, skill and experience through practice and education in a particular field or area of study. Informally, an expert is someone widely recognized ...

on the

primate Primates is an order (biology), order of mammals, which is further divided into the Strepsirrhini, strepsirrhines, which include lemurs, galagos, and Lorisidae, lorisids; and the Haplorhini, haplorhines, which include Tarsiiformes, tarsiers a ...

fossil record A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

and a 2000 MacArthur Fellowship "Genius" Award Winner. Beard's

research Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

is reshaping critical

debates Debate is a process that involves formal discourse, discussion, and oral addresses on a particular topic or collection of topics, often with a moderator and an audience. In a debate, arguments are put forward for opposing viewpoints. Historica ...

about the evolutionary origins of

mammals A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three middle e ...

, including primates, routinely questioning current thinking about their geographical origins. Dr. Beard is the former Curator of the

Carnegie Museum of Natural History The Carnegie Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as CMNH) is a natural history museum in the Oakland (Pittsburgh), Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was founded by List of people from the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, Pit ...

, and Mary R. Dawson Chair of Vertebrate Paleontology, at

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...

. He is currently Distinguished Foundation Professor, Senior Curator at the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...

. He was co-author with Dan Gebo about an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

primate from

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. Dr. Beard also authored the book ''The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey: Unearthing the Origins of Monkeys, Apes and Humans''.Science
/ref> Beard was also part of the research teams that discovered ''

Teilhardina ''Teilhardina'' (, ) is an extinct marmoset-like omomyid primate that lived in Europe, North America and Asia during the Early Eocene epoch, about 56-47 million years ago. The paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson named it after the French pale ...

'', the earliest primate ever found in North America, and ''

Eosimias ''Eosimias'' is a genus of early primates, first discovered and identified in 1999 from fossils collected in the Shanghuang fissure-fillings of Liyang, the southern city of Jiangsu Province, China. It is a part of the family Eosimiidae, and inclu ...

'', one of the earliest higher primates yet discovered. He worked with

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

to scan a ''

Tyrannosaurus rex ''Tyrannosaurus'' () is a genus of large theropoda, theropod dinosaur. The type species ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' ( meaning 'king' in Latin), often shortened to ''T. rex'' or colloquially t-rex, is one of the best represented theropods. It live ...

'' skull. Beard received his PhD from the Functional Anatomy and Evolution Program at

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) is the medical school of Johns Hopkins University, a Private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Established in 1893 following the construction of the Johns Ho ...

in 1989. Below is a list of taxa that Beard has contributed to naming:

Awards

* 2000

MacArthur Fellows Program The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and ...

Books

''The hunt for the dawn monkey: unearthing the origins of monkeys, apes, and humans''
University of California Press, 2004,
"Mammalian Biogeography and Anthropoid Origins"
''Primate biogeography: progress and prospects'', Editors Shawn M. Lehman, John G. Fleagle, Springer, 2006,
"Basal Anthropoids"
''The primate fossil record'', Editor Walter Carl Hartwig, Cambridge University Press, 2002,
"Early Wasatchian Mammals From the Gulf Coastal Plain of Mississippi"
''Eocene biodiversity: unusual occurrences and rarely sampled habitats'', Editor Gregg F. Gunnell, Springer, 2001,

Papers

* * * *

References

External links

"K. Christopher Beard"
''Scientific Commons''

''The Washington Post'', Apr 5, 1996 {{DEFAULTSORT:Beard, K. Christopher American paleontologists University of Pittsburgh faculty MacArthur Fellows Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American curators